Maternal Tenacles
The fossilized skeleton we call “Lucy”, is known in Ethiopia as “Dinkinesh”, which can be translated as “you are marvelous”.
MATERNAL TENTACLES
A year ago I saw a show
about an ancient ancestor
found under earth and rock
in dry savanna gorge--
they named her “Lucy”.
I immediately fell in love
with the poor innocent
and that night I dreamt
her tiny skeleton slept beneath
a blanket of my own ancient dust.
Yes, dreams tell incredible truths--
apparently the white man I am
carries this humble stone mother spirit
deep in his innards:
we hold more
than we’ll ever know
but
it’s good to know
as much as you can
about what you hold
because
I now feel the loss--
I now grieve the death
of this simple loving nature.
Now I will nurture
that maternal engine
back to life.
As I feel empathy for myself
I feel empathy for the world:
I can see this loss all over the world.
Men lactate in their own way--
a buried reservoir awakens.
I could stop the flow, but dare not--
for too long I’ve known
the pain of being dry.
Nonetheless, I’m tentative
as this milk spills over--spreads--extends
its tentacles
beyond the borders
of my domain‑‑
these feelers want to feel
but remain afraid:
they’ve encountered
blunt objects before
and been blunted.
But with this fledgling spreading
the gray beneath Lucy's fingertips
slowly bleeds back to pink
and pink desert flowers bloom:
the prickly desert slowly transforms
into a desert garden. Oh so slowly.
But slow change endures.
© 2021, Michael R. Patton
Dancing to Raven’s Song: a novel
Labels: feeling, grief, growth, healing, loss, lucy, maternal, mother, new age, poetry, resurrection, spirituality, spoken word, transformation
posted by Michael R. Patton at 8:46 PM
3 Comments:
Such a fragile poem ... quite fitting for Lucy. She starts her exhibit here in Houston, I believe.
There's an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts now that's been here for a while. I really must get over there before it goes somewhere else. I forget what it's called now, something about the mind? No, that's not right. (The inside/outside views of the human body is what it's all about, showing the interconnectiveness of it all.) Supposed to be quite extraordinary.
While I have little interest in going to see Lucy, I thought you might like to know, Michael, that -- in my opinion -- there has been a great deal of sacredness and respect for her evidenced in the advance publicity for this show, and in interviews with the museum staff and various archaeologists.
I just remembered the name of the exhibit ... "Body Works" (might be one word only, but the name's correct).
Ye Gods! Not the Museum of Fine Arts ... the Museum of Natural Science. Come on, Goldenrod, focus!
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